


caught in the way you've got me

by svatantrata



Category: NCT (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band), 여자친구 | GFriend (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Friendship/Love, Growing Up, M/M, Multi, Pining, Polyamory, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-07 18:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19214860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svatantrata/pseuds/svatantrata
Summary: "Why wouldn’t I?" Seokmin replies. “Isn’t going on a road trip, like, one of those ‘Great American Experiences’ that—” here, he takes on Mingyu’s southern drawl— “y’allhave been missing out on?” He shuts a drawer, then opens another one at random. “Besides, it’s with Jaehyun and Yuna—”"It's always them," Mingyu interrupts, concern lacing the rounded-out syllables. "Why should I even ask?" He collapses back onto his bed but keeps one eye open to watch Seokmin pack. All relaxed, but a hidden worry underneath. “Of course it is.”Seokmin stares down at all of the mismatched socks in his underwear drawer and shrugs. He can't exactly contest the truth.





	caught in the way you've got me

**Author's Note:**

> And never did I think that I   
>  Would be caught in the way you got me   
>  But girls love girls and boys   
>  And love is not a choice   
> 

The road trip is Yuna's idea, because it's always her idea for these types of things. She’s the one who, in eighth grade, convinced Seokmin and Jaehyun to join the middle school play. Jaehyun had been Romeo, Yuna had been Friar Lawrence, and Seokmin, for some horrid reason, had Juliet foisted on him. He doesn't remember much of it besides the scratchiness of the blonde wig he wore and the way his voice cracked every other line as he tried on the affect of a teenage girl.

But anyway: after finals, Yuna meets with them at their favorite boba shop, the one isn't the closest to any of their apartments but is the epicenter of all three, somehow. Seokmin stares at her expectantly while she fiddles with the straw in her milk tea. Seokmin’s never seen her this nervous. Not since the few minutes before opening night of _Romeo and Juliet_ when Yuna turned to him, caked in stage-makeup, and had asked, “Will this turn out okay?” while Jaehyun patted her back with the subtlety of, well, a middle schooler. Yuna forgot half of her lines that night; none of them do plays, anymore.

"I got a call from my mom yesterday," Yuna begins, tucking wisps of her bangs behind her ears. One of her slender fingers twists around a strand of hair, fidgeting. She doesn't get along well with her mom, not since she dragged him and Jaehyun over to her house and said,  _See, Eomma, they’re my best friends_ , and Yuju's mom responded with _Yuju, why don't you go play with some girls your age?_  "She wants me to visit."

"And?" Jaehyun prompts. In the late afternoon light, his eyes are like dark molasses, sweet. He takes a measured sip of his matcha latte, then sits back with his hands clasped upon the table.

"And, well," Yuna looks down at the table, then back up at them, biting down on her lower lip. "Wouldn't it be fun if we visited together?"

Seokmin has never been able to say no to that _look_ , to that plaintive question in her eyes. He opens his mouth, and says—

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

"Are you sure you should be going?" Mingyu asks him, running a hand through his hair. He watches Seokmin pack with sharp eyes, unusually serious.

"Why wouldn’t I?" Seokmin replies. “Isn’t going on a road trip, like, one of those ‘Great American Experiences’ that—” here, he takes on Mingyu’s southern drawl— “ _y’all_ have been missing out on?” He shuts a drawer, then opens another one at random. There’s nothing inside besides an empty coke bottle, a stack of LinAlg problem sets, and a five-dollar bill. Cool. He reaches for the bottom-most drawer and pulls it open. “Besides, it’s with Jaehyun and Yuna—”

"It's always them," Mingyu interrupts, concern lacing the rounded-out syllables. "Why should I even ask?" He collapses back onto his bed but keeps one eye open to watch Seokmin pack. All relaxed, but a hidden worry underneath. “Of course it is.”

Seokmin stares down at all of the mismatched socks in his underwear drawer and shrugs. He can't exactly contest the truth.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

Before Seokmin was friends with Jaehyun and Yuna, he hated them. Not seriously, of course, but in that distant contempt with which Seokmin regarded anyone his parents forced him to hang out with. Jaehyun, aged ten, preferred soccer to Pokemon— _how boring_ , honestly, just kicking around a ball all day—and Yuna spent most of her time reading books.

Summer brought about a change in Seokmin’s fickle ten-year-old mind. Suddenly Yuna was cool because she knew her way around every nature trail and which berries were poisonous (most of them, as it turned out) and which berries were good to eat (none of them were that tasty). Jaehyun taught the two of them to play soccer, and they’d scrimmage 2v1 until one of them collapsed on the freshly-mowed grass, breathless from exertion.

In their small Connecticut town, set in old New England ways, they were the only three Asians in their entire grade. Seokmin stuck close to Jaehyun and Yuna as a result. They were an odd bunch, but it _worked_ —he doesn’t know how else to put it. What, then, can explain how the three of them ended up in California together, independently of each other's decisions? What, then, can explain the way Seokmin's heart isn't divided, but rather bridges Jaehyun and Yuna together? His feelings are sweet like taffy, something golden-warm that sticks and _sticks_.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

By tradition, he isn't the one driving. In high school, Jaehyun had been the first one of them to get his driver’s license; Seokmin flunked the test three times. Now, he isn't _that_ bad of a driver—he got a lot of practice in while commuting to his internship last summer—but old habits die hard. Jaehyun's taking the wheel, for now. Yuna has half of the US highways memorized, a result of an overzealous summer spent preparing for the National Geography Bee, so she sits in the shotgun seat.

Seokmin closes his eyes, leaning against the window so that he can stretch his legs across the entire back seat. He sits behind Yuna so that he can make out Jaehyun's profile, when he's in the mood for looking, and because Yuna likes to hold his hand in between the seat and the car door when she's feeling tired.

"I can't believe we're already hitting traffic," Jaehyun is saying. His fingers tap a familiar rhythm against the wheel. "Damn, we've barely left LA."

Yuna sighs. "It'll only be thirty minutes, I swear," she says, pushing her bangs out of her face. "I mean, we could've taken the other route, but. It would've been forty-five minutes extra."

Jaehyun hums in agreement. "Music?" he suggests.

"Hm." There's some shuffling as Yuna digs out her phone, then the loud _tap-tap_ of her fingers against the screen. "Lemme connect to the Bluetooth."

It's a throwback, The Neighborhood's "Sweater Weather.” Seokmin remembers studying for finals back in high school, a mess of growing limbs and insecurity, surrounded by Yuna's body systems diagrams for Biology and Jaehyun's chicken-scratch math notes.

(" _Seokmin_ , Seokmin," Jaehyun urged, tapping on his shoulder repeatedly like a woodpecker going at a tree. "Quiz me for World History."

Seokmin sighed, taking an earbud out. "Yuna can't help you?" He needed to go through the lymphatic system again, damn it. Seokmin stared at her, hoping that she would somehow take a hint. Yuna remained oblivious. "Okay, fine, what was the Defenestration of Prague?")

The sun streams in from the window, bright orange against his closed eyelids. He blinks them open, just once, then shuts them again. The motoric rhythm of car, purring and slow in the traffic, settles him into sleep.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

During senior year of high school, Jaehyun told him that he wanted to ask Yuna to prom. There was all that vivid uncertainty about how everything was going to end up; no one had committed to colleges yet, refusing to reveal their top choices to each other. He had thought, then, that these months would be the last he'd ever spend with the three of them together.

"Is it okay if I ask Yuna to prom?" Jaehyun said, shifting his weight from one foot to another anxiously. Back then, he still played varsity soccer. Seokmin remembers looking down at Jaehyun's feet and staring at the brown muck on his cleats; Jaehyun reeked of dirt and sweat.

"Why wouldn't it be okay?" Seokmin replied. Somehow he felt on edge, hands wringing together, almost—nervous. In the light, Jaehyun was golden, and it was difficult to look at. "She's not, like, my fucking iPhone charger or something."

Jaehyun raised his eyebrows. Back then, Seokmin never swore. He rarely does, now, but up till age nineteen he had been particularly straight-laced.

(“That's why everything's so complicated between y'all,” Mingyu said once. He kicked his legs up into Seokmin’s lap as Seokmin had sobbed, feeling miserable and teary and hopelessly in love with his two best friends. “All of that… _repression_.”)

"Woah, dude, chill," Jaehyun said, holding his hands up like he was under arrest. Somehow, Seokmin felt like he was the one under attack. "That's not what I meant—"

"It's fine," Seokmin interrupted. Slowly, he unclenched his fists. Running his fingers over the surface of his palms, he could feel where his nails had bit into soft skin.

Yuna ended up saying yes to Jungkook Jeon, some guy that Seokmin had exchanged words with a grand total of three times.

They don't really talk about prom.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

"We shouldn't wake him up." A voice, coming from far away. It takes a couple of moments for Seokmin to register the source of it as Jaehyun, his tone low and urgent.

"What are you going to do? Carry him?" Yuna counters. Her voice is as clear as glass, resonant without even trying, and it cuts through his foggy, tired mind.

"I could probably do it—"

"What? Guys?" Seokmin struggles to sit up against the side of the car, blinking his eyes open to find Jaehyun and Yuna staring back at him. It's dark, the sky a polluted sort of drab gray. Everything seems murky around him. He blinks: once, twice. His vision settles.

"We reached the motel," Jaehyun says. He smiles, fond, and there's the little dimple in his cheek that Seokmin would poke at if he was close enough. "You were sleeping the entire time, I think."

Seokmin rolls his shoulders back a couple of times, wincing when he hears a crack. "I'm still tired," he admits sheepishly.

"Finals were that bad, huh?" Yuna asks, her mouth pursed in worry. "Come on, let's check in so we can go _sleep_ , damn it."

She steps out of the car, then opens the door on Seokmin's side to tug him out, her hand warm around his forearm. Jaehyun soon joins them, sandwiching Seokmin's other side.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

After surveying the cleanliness of the motel bathroom—dubious, to say the least, with an ugly crack that scarred the tiled wall—Seokmin takes the shortest, most economical shower possible. He collapses onto one of the beds once he’s done, weariness bone-deep. Jaehyun, no doubt scrolling through his Instagram feed, pets the top of Seokmin's head with his other hand.

He closes his eyes, soaking in the soft comfort. He would be asleep, but the blue light of Jaehyun’s screen keeps irritating his eyes.

"You should sleep," Seokmin says, after a while. He reaches out and bats ineffectually at Jaehyun's arm, hoping to shut his phone off.

Jaehyun laughs and finally turns it off. "I will," he promises, reaching over Seokmin to place his phone on the bedside table.

The room is dark save for the sliver of light seeping in from the bathroom. Soon Yuna steps out, shutting the lights off behind her, and he sees nothing besides black underneath his eyelids. By then he and Jaehyun have curled up on their bed, close enough to radiate heat to each other yet far enough to not touch.

And maybe Seokmin dreams this next part, but: he feels a gentle touch on his forehead, hears a whispered _goodnight_ from soft lips. Then, then, he returns to sleep.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

"Did we detour for this?" Seokmin wonders as the three of them step out of the car. He slams the door behind him quickly, eager to escape into the fresh air.

The sun's starting to set, the temperature slowly settling into something more bearable. The back of Seokmin's neck is still sticky from resting against the car seat the entire day. He takes a couple of breaths, feeling slightly more alive, at least.

Yuna, sunglasses propped up on the top of her head, gives Seokmin a _look_. "Of course we did," she says. "Nothing interesting is ever on the direct route, anyway." Her hands fiddle with the edge of her t-shirt, twisting at a loose strand. "You two haven't ever seen the Grand Canyon, right?"

"Yeah," Jaehyun replies, yawning. When he stretches, his shirt rides up, exposing a sliver of pale skin. When Yuna catches Seokmin looking, she hides a smile behind the palm of her hand. "Alright, let's do this."

Seokmin makes sure to stay close to Yuna while they're on the Skywalk, watching carefully as her eyes widen. It doesn’t take long for her to reach out for Seokmin's hand. Her grip is an iron clamp. Yuna has always been afraid of heights. The last time they visited New York City—spring break, last year, with Mingyu and Eunha in tow—she had refused to go up to the top of the Empire State Building with the rest of them.

"Don't look down," Jaehyun says behind them. He rests a hand on Yuna's shoulder, close enough that Seokmin can smell him: laundry detergent, the special aftershave that's too expensive for Seokmin's tastes, and something sweet.

On instinct, Seokmin looks down. And, okay, he doesn't have a deathly fear of heights, but—it's something else, this great expanse of rock and wilderness. Seokmin has spent his entire childhood in manicured upper-middle-class suburbia and his college years in urban Los Angeles. He's never come close to nature quite like this before.

Yuna sighs, so soft that it's almost lost to the desert wind. "This isn't so bad," she admits. Seokmin presses their wrists together, feeling her pulse like a wildfire.

"It really isn't," Jaehyun agrees, looking far out into the horizon. The setting sun reflects in his eyes, red-orange and beautiful. He mirrors Yuna's sigh. "It really isn't."

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

Soon enough, it’s Seokmin’s turn to take the wheel. Jaehyun sits up front with him. (“If I stare at a map any longer I think I'll gouge my eyes out,” Yuna had told them this morning. Seokmin couldn’t exactly say no to her, at that moment.)

He's fine with driving, really. It's just endless, miles and miles ahead of them with no real destination in sight. It’s as if they’re stranded, lost; he needs security. "Yuna," he calls, at some point after the first hour. "Sing something."

"What song?" Yuna replies, already scrolling through her phone. She leans forward, resting her chin on Jaehyun’s seat. "I'll let Jaehyun take control of the playlist for the next hour if he sings with me."

"Hell, no," Jaehyun protests, holding his arms in front of his chest in an _x_. "C'mon, Seokmin was asking you, Yuna—"

"Please?" Seokmin interrupts, taking his eyes off of the road to give his best approximation of puppy eyes. He isn't sure if it works. The last time he tried it on someone, Mingyu had taken one look at his face, laughed, then said, _The hell you tryin' to pull over me?_ like Seokmin was a used-car salesman.

"He said _please_ , Jae," Yuna adds. Seokmin doesn't even need to turn around to know that she's working her magic. Yuna's got this power to convince people—probably a side-effect of being beautiful, he thinks—that borders on sorcery.

"Fine," Jaehyun sighs, rubbing at one of his eyes. "But if you make me sing "Rewrite the Stars" again I'll be very, very disappointed."

He doesn't protest much more beyond that, even when Yuna _does_ end up choosing "Rewrite the Stars." That’s the song Yuna’s acapella group sang at the Spring Jam. He and Jaehyun had gone to watch it together, Seokmin sneezing every couple of minutes due to allergies, and he remembers hearing Yuna belt out _Everything keeps us apart_ and thinking _damn, I relate_.

Of all things, this one gets to him every time. All three of them are good at singing, but show it in their own sort of way: Seokmin working on a minor in Vocal Performance, Yuna leads one of the acapella groups on campus, and Jaehyun—well, Jaehyun _pretends_ to be bad at singing, but no one is fooled all that much.

Seokmin keeps his eyes on the road as Yuna and Jaehyun sing together, goosebumps rising along his arms as she harmonizes with him. There's nothing that feels more right.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

At the next motel, the receptionist gives them a couple of odd looks when Yuna says she'd like _one room, two beds, please_. It's nothing much, but it’s enough to make the back of Seokmin's neck feel itchy, uncomfortable. He hears that _word_ —harsh, muttered underneath the receptionist's breath—and it's enough to make his spine go straight with tension.

Seokmin hates the fact of other people looking, passing their judgment, twisting everything all wrong till he’s second guessing every action. Yuna rests a hand on his shoulder, a silent reassurance, and Seokmin tries to exhale out his feelings.

"Hey," Jaehyun says, once they enter their room. "You alright?"

Seokmin shrugs. "Fine." What else is he supposed to say in response to a question like that? There's nothing but the expectation that everything is fine, will be fine. _Nothing to see here_ , he wants to say. Just a college student, twenty-one years young and no wisdom to show for it, on a road trip with his two best friends. Who he happens to be in love with. Of course it's just _fine_.

Yuna watches them, bites down on her lower lip. "Maybe we should—" she breaks off, hands deftly letting down her hair. Some of it spills across her eyes, her expression obfuscated. "Stay in different rooms, I don't know."

"Too expensive," Seokmin refutes immediately. The only reason he managed to be part of the upper-middle-class in Connecticut was because his family pinched pennies at any possible opportunity. Ironic, maybe, but—he’s the son of two immigrants; it’s expected.

"Let's sleep," Jaehyun suggests. He pushes the hair back up off his forehead, then smooths it back down again "I think it's—well, they can all fuck off."

“Yeah, screw them,” Yuna says, mouth set in a determined line as she pushes her hair away from her face.

"Screw them," Seokmin echoes. He's surprised at how bitter he sounds. As if anger could ever fix anything.

He closes his eyes, can't help but sigh. They can't just say _screw them_ forever, is the thing. He knows that. But the worst part is that he _wants_ to, wants it in that deep, hidden way that he has always loved Jaehyun and Yuna.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

After that, the days start to blur together. There isn't much that they stop for in the heart of America.

("No offense," Jaehyun had said when they planned out the road trip, "but there's a reason why they're called fly-over states, right?"

" _Offense_ ," Yuna replied, flicking Jaehyun's cheek with a smile. "That's kind of a mean thing to say about Missouri, y' know."

"People can hate on Connecticut all they'd like, too." Jaehyun had reached out to poke Yuna’s cheek in return, but she ducked out of his way. "They just wouldn't be successful, 'cause Connecticut is superior." He turned to Seokmin, then, one hand resting on Yuna's shoulder. "What do you think, Seokmin?")

Their air-conditioning breaks somewhere in the mess of it all, too, and that's the _real_ problem. Jaehyun starts to get crabby with the heat, and Seokmin responds in turn, more and more snappish. Yuna becomes tired of playing the mediator and chooses to feign sleep instead, forehead glistening with sweat as her cheek rests against the car window. It’s miserable.

When they check into the motel that night, Yuna slams her way into the bathroom and takes a shower for at least ten minutes longer than normal. Sweat congealing on his back, Seokmin looks over at Jaehyun, similarly exhausted, and feels foolish all of a sudden.

He reaches his hand out, touches Jaehyun's shoulder. It's wet under his fingers and pretty damn gross. Regardless, it brings him comfort to look at Jaehyun's sweat-shiny face. He shivers at the touch of Jaehyun's sticky fingers across the back of his neck and feels at ease. They’re always like this: stupid at fighting and even more stupid at making up. There’s no drawn-out tension, just biting passive-aggressive commentary and an easy remedy.

Yuna steps into the room, rubbing a towel over her hair. "Did you guys make up?" she asks. She takes the towel off then flips her hair so that it's out of her eyes, inadvertently spraying them with water in the process.

"Hey, watch it," Jaehyun says, no heat behind it. He smiles lazily up at Yuna. Seokmin watches the two of them with half-lidded eyes, one step away from sleep.

Yuna shrugs, unapologetic. She steps closer to the bed, sitting carefully on one corner of it so that she doesn't touch either of them. "You guys should shower," she says, wrinkling her nose. “It smells really shitty in here.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, then pulls Seokmin closer to him so that they're lying flush against each other, chest to back. That's how Seokmin knows they’re okay. "Yeah, yeah, of course."

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

On their last night, they stop at a park. Not a national park, or anything like that, but one of those local recreational areas in the center of town with a dismal cluster of trees, some grass, and a couple of benches. Seokmin doesn't know where he is. Couldn't care less, really. It's their last night. By tomorrow afternoon they'll be in the cookie-cutter suburbs of Connecticut, subject to parental expectations and summer obligations.

Yuna's the first to talk because it's always her idea for these types of things. She takes a deep breath like she's preparing to belt out a solo in a concert.

"Do you think," she begins, staring at the clump of trees across the field, "that maybe we should talk about this? Us?"

There's silence, except not really; the crickets—or maybe it's the cicadas, Seokmin's never been good at science—drown everything out. It’s an undulating, pulsing sound, and his heart keeps rhythm with it.

"We could," Jaehyun says slowly, from the other side of Seokmin. "But what is there, even, to _say_?"

"Yeah, I don't know," Seokmin breaks in. He looks down at his feet, considering. "I don't know what—what'll happen in the," he swallows, "future."

And that's it. That's the crux of it: the stop sign in the middle of the road they've been driving down. Some days Seokmin just wants to tear everything in his hands. Other days, he'll just put his head down, follow the traffic. He's never been good at driving; he's gotten _used_ to it, is all.

"Even a year from now," Seokmin continues. Jaehyun shifts, reaching his arm around Seokmin to tug him close. Yuna's got her hands on Seokmin's fingers, her eyes luminous as they reflect the nearest light. "Will we be—like this?"

Yuna's looking to apply to medical school; Seokmin has the GRE to take and grad school applications to fill out. Jaehyun has job positions to interview for. A year from now, their lives won't lead to the same college in Los Angeles. A year from now, there'll be no easy way to stay together.

Yuna rests her chin on one hand, the other hand still grasping onto Seokmin's. "I don't have the answer to that," she says. "I mean, I _can't_ —and I don't." She takes another performance-ready breath. "But why can't we _try_?" She turns to face the two of them more completely. "Jaehyun?”

Jaehyun’s hesitant, Seokmin can see as much, but his resolve seems to grow with the passing moments. “You’re right,” he says. He reaches to place his palm on top of Yuna’s fingers, which still rest on Seokmin’s hands. All three of them are connected by the same fluttering pulse. Seokmin imagines that his heart, too, is the same—winged and light, ready to take flight.

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist tells them. “We don’t have any rooms with two beds left. But, if you would like, ma’am, you could stay in two rooms. King beds, and only twenty dollars extra.”

Yuna tilts her head, obviously considering. She looks back at Jaehyun and Seokmin, fingers tapping a nervous pattern against her credit card. “Did you say a king-sized bed?”

“Yes,” the receptionist replies. “If you’d like—”

“We’ll take one room,” Yuna replies. She’s still looking at the two of them, eyebrows raised in a question. “If that’s alright?”

“Will we be able to fit?” Jaehyun wonders as they enter the elevator. He keeps shifting the straps of his bag from one shoulder to the other.

“I mean, in theory, we should,” Yuna replies. She catches Seokmin’s eye in the reflective elevator doors and smiles at him. “Not sure about how that works out in practice, though.”

Seokmin returns the smile. “We’ll just have to see, then.”

 

 

⥢⥣⥤

 

 

In practice, it’s a tight fit, but it _does_ work. Seokmin wakes up the next morning with Yuna’s head resting on his back; Jaehyun’s hogging all of the blankets as usual.

The sun streams through the windows, everything bathed in gold. Seokmin watches the curve of Jaehyun’s fluttering eyelashes and listens to the quiet rhythm of Yuna’s breathing. It’s a simple truth, but a powerful one: he loves them.

Seokmin doesn’t know what lies on the road ahead, not past returning to his childhood home. Yet, _yet_ , he has a feeling it’ll work out somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! this was so self-indulgent TTATT // sry for completely misinterpreting the actual song... oops // dk/yuju interacts: [1](https://data.whicdn.com/images/222949077/original.gif),[2](https://youtu.be/ggwYQ7z8cgo?t=34) \+ dk/jaehyun interacts: [1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcogRMKzZos),[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwrDZ4ebxFI) // comments & kudos are appreciated <3
> 
>  
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/mathmxrk) // [cc](https://curiouscat.me/mathmxrk) *-*


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